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Didn't SOE already announce they were making instanced versions of the continents for this very thing? Pretty sure they said it at the last MLG event about three weeks ago.

This wouldn't work on a "live" server for three big glaring reason.

1) How do you get everyone started on an equal playing field?
2) How do you factor in random players and outfits that have no interest in playing. This will directly affect the score and point one.
3) You're assuming that the one rule will actually be followed by all members of all squads of all outfits. That's asking a lot

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

Does not yet include the last double xp weekend. Does anyone remember when the one before that was?
The new characters created seem to be stable, which is good. But active characters is constantly dropping. Which is sad. Only about 50% of the people that played in January. Would be interesting to know if the last double xp brought some of them back.

Found the info. Last one was March 15-17. During GU4 where there were some severe performance issues. That's why I remember but could not track down the date.
"Interestingly" it did not seem to increase activity or new characters.
But maybe it's just a bad example because of the performance issues. Although surely many players at least logged in, despite the performance.

All servers will come down for Game Update 06 beginning at 6:00 AM. Downtime is anticipated to be less than 2.5 hours. Players may note the following changes:

General Updates

Service Ribbons

Service Ribbons are quick-to-earn achievements that are repeatable and grant a reward for completing them.

Service Ribbons are earned by killing enemies with infantry weapons and by supporting your allies. We will be adding more ribbon types (ex: teamwork, base capture, and vehicle ribbons) in future updates.

Players earn an experience bonus (on top of the normal ribbon experience reward) for the first few ribbons earned each day

Weapon Ribbons = 10 kills

Revive Ribbon = 15 revives

Healing Ribbon = Heal 10,000 points

Repairing Ribbon = Repair 15,000 points

Piloting Ribbon = 20 driver assists

Rewards for each are 250xp

An additional 500xp if it’s receiving the daily bonus

Alerts

This is a new, dynamic, server controlled event system. Alerts are automatically triggered and communicated to players through notifications and the [Tab] screen.

The Alert type being introduced in this initial phase of implementation is Continent Capture. In Continent Capture, empires will need to control a specific continent within a fixed amount of time. If an empire captures all regions on the designated continent before the timer expires that empire will be declared the winner, ending the alert. If no empire captures all regions within the allotted time, all empires will receive a reward proportional to the territory control (i.e. an empire that owns 40% of the territory will earn 40% of the reward). Players do not have to be on the alert continent to receive the reward. The reward is server-wide.

While participating in the event areas players will receive a percent increase to their experience rewards.

We will be adding more alert types in future updates.

New Membership Benefits

Members now have access to an additional daily sale

Members now have access to an additional three character slots as part of their membership

Client stability improvements

New in the Depot

Extra character slots can now be purchased from the Depot

The new common pool NS-15M LMG has been added to the Depot

New Mercenary Helmets for Combat Medic and Engineer

Infantry Updates

Tank Mines Will no longer arm if thrown on top of a vehicle.

All Shotguns

Maximum damage per pellet reduced to 134 damage on all shotguns that previously did 143 damage.

Slowed down to 700 MS, from 575 MS (now matches assault rifle equip times and not carbines).

Slug Ammunition

Slug animation no longer lowers rate of fire when equipped.

Now reaches minimum damage at 40 meters, reduced from 65 meters.

Minimum and maximum damage are unchanged on semi-auto and auto shotguns. Pump-action slug ammunition had its minimum damage raised to 400 from 360.

Iron sights and optics have been realigned to give a better sight picture.

NC Mauler S6, TR FA1 Barrage, and VS Pandora

Rate of fire slowed down to 225 RPM.

Short reload time slowed down to 2050 MS.

Long reload time is faster at 3350 MS.

Lowered vertical recoil to 1.3, from 1.5.

NC Sweeper, TR TS4 Haymaker, and VS Nova

Rate of fire slowed down to 225 RPM.

Short reload time slowed down to 2900 MS.

Long reload time slowed down to 4100 MS.

Lowered vertical recoil to 1.3, from 1.5.

NC Piston, TR AS16 NightHawk, and VS Thanatos

Rate of fire slowed down to 260 RPM.

Short reload time slowed down to 2600 MS (long reload unchanged).

Recoil recovery rate slowed down to 12 degrees per second, from 15.

Minimum damage lowered to 50 per pellet.

NC GD-66 Claw, TR TRS-12 Uppercut, and VS Phobos VX86

Chamber time slowed down to 600 MS.

Recoil recovery rate slowed down to 12 degrees per second, from 15.

All NC MAX shotguns

Extended ammunition lowered from +5 ammunition to +4.

NC Scattercannon

Rate of fire slowed down to 180 RPM.

Projectile speed slowed down to 300 m/s.

Magazine capacity lowered to 6.

Short reload time slowed down to 3800 MS.

Long reload time slowed down to 3000 MS.

NC Mattock

Rate of fire slowed down to 180 RPM.

Projectile speed slowed down to 400 m/s.

Magazine capacity lowered to 6.

Short reload time slowed down to 3800 MS.

Long reload time slowed down to 3000 MS.

Spread accuracy improved and is now at 2.5 degrees.

NC Hacksaw

Rate of fire slowed down to 209 RPM.

Projectile speed slowed down to 300 m/s.

Magazine capacity lowered to 6.

Minimum damage lowered to 50 per pellet.

NC Grinder

Rate of fire slowed down to 180 RPM.

Projectile speed slowed down to 275 m/s.

Magazine capacity lowered to 8.

Short reload time slowed down to 4300 MS.

Long reload time slowed down to 3400 MS.

NS-11c

Fixed weapon not working with the ammunition belt.

Fixed reload speed being 2 seconds for both the short and long reloads. New reload times are:

​Short: 1.85 seconds

Long: 2.35 seconds

Fixed forward grip not being aligned with the rail.

General tuning

Fix for the Phoenix dumb-firing if fired quickly after entering iron sights

The charge on the Lancer can now be sustained through switching to different fire modes (in/out of ironsights)

MAX weapons no longer have incorrect access to rail attachments in the VR zone.

Dissapointed that they went the nerf way on the maxes instead of actually looking over the weapons of all maxes for a short balance tweak pass that would differentiate weapons. Because right now there isn't really any difference between the different weapons a max has to choose from, they are all tiny variants of the same weapon. If the NC max would get 1 short range wide cone of fire shotgun and 1 midrange tight cone of fire shotgun there would actually be a choice in what weapons they need. Just as we could have a max arm with extreme fire rate but wide cone and one slower with a tight cone.

Right now max weapons are basically either shit or decent, and that is the only difference between them. This is what needs addressing not sweeping nerfs to all weapons, or cool new abilities. Just differentiate the bloody weapons.

I could be wrong, but it looks to me as pump actions still have the 1 shot kill option. The focus on sluggs is strange indeed, but it might be that in the right hands they where possibly even stronger then the normal pellet shot.

At least they didn't overshoot to much this time, at least I hope. Only playing will tell.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

Here's the thing, they still didn't fix shotguns, only made difference between pump and others even clearer. Pump actions are now only shotguns worth getting.

That my friend, I agree on.

Also, @wardancer. I think the max update will be coming next week or the week after that. I suspect they wanted to pull all maxes to roughly the same level (or attempt to) before adding new stuff. I think they where talking about adding options for the maxes to be effective at all ranges. So one weapon for close, one for long, etc.